About ISR
What is ISR?
ISR was founded in 1966 by Dr. Harvey Barnett and is now recognized as the global leader in providing survival swimming lessons for infants and young children. The ISR team consists of over 800 highly trained Instructors who provide the safest and most effective survival swimming lessons available. The ISR Self-Rescue® instruction which students receive today is the product of 50+ years of research and achieves unparalleled results.
ISR firmly believes that pool fences, supervision, and pool alarms are crucial components of a comprehensive approach to preventing children from drowning. However, traditional methods of protection often fall short, and the alarming statistic of over 4,000 drowning deaths annually serves as a stark reminder that these conventional approaches overlook a vital element: the child. ISR’s unwavering conviction is that the child holds the utmost importance in a drowning prevention strategy. Our extensive experience, with over 300,000 ISR graduates and 800 documented survival stories, demonstrates that children possess the capability to save themselves. Children are naturally curious, resourceful, and possess an extraordinary ability to overcome obstacles, such as pool fences. At ISR, we equip them with the essential skills to safeguard themselves if they find themselves in the water alone.
Who participates in ISR?
Infants Crawling - 6 Years Old
Why this young?
Because the sooner the safer! Our program will teach your child breath control, correct floating posture and the ISR Self-Rescue skill of rolling onto their backs to float, rest and breathe until help arrives. These students learn basic survival skills, then are brought back at an older age to learn our Swim-Float-Swim sequence, which they already know a portion of.
Did you know that 83% of children who drown are fully clothed at the time? This is why, during the final week of lessons, while under the watchful eye of an instructor, each of our students has the opportunity to practice their self-rescue skills in their clothes. We prefer to do this with both summer and winter clothes, as drowning has no seasons.